Date:02/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/02/stories/2008100256041200.htm

Front Page

Markets need regulations: Manmohan

Harish Khare

ON BOARD a SPECIAL AIRCRAFT: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the media that India had embarked on economic reforms cautiously.

On his way back after his U.S.-French tour, he said there was no “strong ideological commitment” to the markets as such.

Asked if the current global financial disorder was an occasion to revise the faith in the markets, he argued that “we have no ideological positions. We have been cautious reformers, [carrying out] reforms with a human face. We do not have a strong ideological commitment to the markets; markets are useful servants but markets also need regulations, purposeful regulations.”

The Prime Minister pointed out that “we still don’t have a full blown capital convertibility, so whatever we have done has been done with the long term interest of the country in mind, and at the same time we have sought to ensure that the risks in the process of opening up are controlled.”

He brushed off a question on when the country could expect a new Home Minister, in the wake of criticism against Shivraj Patil after fresh terror blasts. He said, “you don’t expect me to discuss the issue of Cabinet formation in a press conference.”

He had earlier said there was need to “strengthen our intelligence gathering machinery, to streamline our investigation process, and also our prosecution processes.”

Pressed if he was willing to exercise his prerogative of selecting/reshuffling his Cabinet colleagues, he said, “I have to take into account the totality of interests, totality of concerns and whatever will be done will be done in the interest of our country.”

Asked whether he agreed with the interpretation that he stood transformed after the July 22 trust vote, he said he was now the captain of the team. But, he entered the caveat, that it was a coalition team and that such a team was not without its constraints.

“The charge against the Congress is that the Congress is not good at managing coalitions. I wanted to prove that statement wrong and I think we have nearly succeeded. We have given this country a purposeful government, a government which by-and-large has the support and respect of all the constituents of our coalition,” he explained.